Disneyland Encounter

Today my husband surprised the kids and I with a quick trip to Disneyland! Yay! I can hear my kids saying, "Yay, Disneelant!!". Their quick jump for joy and over-achieving smiles are like a bed of roses, soft and comforting with a hint of beautiful aromas tickling my nose unto a grateful smile to my Lord. After all, He has made it all possible. I remember the few occasions when my parents took us to Disneyland as kids. Usually as a birthday outing. We'd share a churro between the four of us. Lunch? Consisted of ham and cheese sandwiches with soggy white wonder bread, packed away in my mom's over-crowded purse. Ahhh, those were the days! I appreciated it so much though. And now, here I am, with year passes for my kids and I. We're able to visit Disneyland whenever and how many times a year we want. Plus, we get to eat a FULL meal at the park restaurants AND buy souvenirs!!! Now that is awesome. Yes, people I live vicariously through my kids! But please don't get me wrong, I am NOT one to spoil them. H and I definitely are making it a strong point to teach them to be grateful for every single thing, in this case their toys or Disneyland park visits, that we're able to give them. Granted, they're only 3 and 5 years old. They know that we do not reward bad behavior and most certainly there are consequences for it.

Okay, back to my Disneyland trip today. As we were walking into The Disney Californian Hotel on our way to our favorite restaurant, we bumped into my Pulmonologist. It was certainly a nice surprise to see him there with his wife and three triplet girls. -I've been thinking about his courteous demeanor ever since.

I am so grateful to my Lord for taking such good care of me. He put this wonderful doctor at my disposal. You'll understand why I am so appreciative of this doctor once you learn that he has jumped through so many hoops to get me the exceptional care and medicine I have the pleasure to receive every month. There are many things to list but for the sake of privacy, I will only say, it's A LOT. More than I would've ever imagined.

"God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,

according to his power that is at work within us."

~Ephesians 3:20

Last December, we had H's cousin and his wife and daughters stay with us from Mexico. Gosh, I gotta say what a blessing it was to have them here for a week. Their honest and humble spirit was just the refresher we needed at that particular time in our lives. At one instance, she asked me about the disease and I went on and on about the struggles I am faced with...calling it, as I had become accustomed to describe as 'my disease'. The last night, we prayed in front of a beautiful fire in our living room. The presence of the Holy Spirit was definitely in the room that night and that is when she brought word to me. I was told by the Holy Spirit that I needed to stop calling it MY disease. I needed to rebuke it every time it came up in conversation and declare life to my being. My life was not in ownership of this disease or vise versa, God was the only owner of my life and with Him as the owner, I can to declare my life a glory to His name and a living sacrifice for Christ.

I know that the Lord is going to use this struggle in my life for so much good. God has entrusted suffering to me because there is much good that He will bring out of this. I love Him so much and yearn for Him everyday. My spiritual hunger is growing and with it, knowledge and growth is what my spirit is slowly and patiently receiving.

"We know that all things work together for good to those who love God,

to those who are called according to His purpose."

~Romans 8:28 NKJV

Life as Lizzy

:)

Message of hope...literally.

I remember the day that I went for an evaluation at the Oxygen company. I was sitting at a table along with another patient. We were both being evaluated to see how much oxygen we needed and what type of tanks would be best for our care. That was the day the devil laughed at me. I will never forget the frail blue-ish face of the other patient, an old man who looked like he was in his 70's and had probably smoked all his life. My heart sank when the therapist confirmed that my oxygen saturation was in fact worse than this man's. He only needed the small 'back-pack' tank. I, on the other hand, was going to need liquid oxygen because my sats were so low. I felt so bad and cried my whole drive home. I didn't want to talk to anybody but the situation I was in was so depressing and horrifying. I couldn't believe I was in worse shape than that old man. I could almost see the devils' face laughing at me, mocking me for living such a straight life.

I have to admit, I cried this morning in the shower thinking that I might not be here to see my little boy go to Kindergarten next year. I kept trying to visualize my little girl carrying a back-pack on her way to school and I couldn't visualize it. It broke my heart. While I was showering somebody left a message on my home phone...

It was the nurse who had just evaluated my need for oxygen a few days prior. I had to take this little machine home and tape an Oxygen Sensor to my finger overnight to monitor how low my oxygen saturation might go down. She said in the message, "Elizabeth, after speaking to your doctor and evaluating the results of your sleep test, we have decided to discontinue your oxygen therapy. You are doing EXCELLENT!!! They will soon contact you to pick up all the tanks and equipment that you don't need anymore."

Words cannot describe how happy I was! I had just finished crying my eyes out to God. Asking Him the 'why' question and going into a depressing pitty party for myself. I looked in the mirror, eyes red and swollen and smiled at my God. I felt His warm embrace as he confirmed that He is there, taking care of me. My future is still unknown, but that's okay. He continues to send me messages of hope, like todays message on my answering machine. I'm not going to delete that one. I'm going to remind myself to listen to it everytime I am feeling down.

Life as Lizzy.

Potty Training

Potty Training is definitely hard as it is when you're 'healthy', but for me it has definitely been very interesting to say the least. I find myself laughing at the simple tasks associated with basic potty training skills that I obviously lack. haha! Read on...

My little L is 2 1/2 years old and had started stripping her diapers off whenever she was 'wet'. So I decided maybe it was time to start potty training. She is at the point where she wears an underwear all day long and pees in the potty all the time. I should be ecstatic, right? Wrong. Here comes my dilemma...I am finding myself getting tired and out of breath every time she pees in the potty because this means I am up and down the stairs, running back and forth, and bending down and up more than usual. Hence, we only have one little potty upstairs because I haven't got the chance to buy a second one and she doesn't like the little toilet seat I had originally bought for our small downstairs bathroom.

Sad visual: picture me practically crawling up the stairs slowly, yet swiftly, breathing in as much air as I possibly can seeing a light at the of the tunnel as I reach the last step on the second floor. :(

Happy visual: She waves bye-bye to the draining urine and says, 'Bye-bye pipi!' as she empties the basin into the 'big' toilet then flushes it. :)

Laughing visual: If I don't get there in time, she'll splash her urine all over the floor as she attempts to carry the basin from her little potty to the big potty.

Finally, we've pardoned her on the basis of innocent age for the fact that she has no concept of being financially frugal as her parents are with even the most minuscule toiletries like toilet paper -thanks Dave Ramsey. I find myself thinking out loud asking sarcastically, 'Do you think the toilet paper grows on trees?' (actually it kinda does, lol). I have found several trails of TP slithered across the entire bathroom as if it were a white laboring anaconda helplessly searching for a resting place.

Should I laugh or cry?

:) Life as Lizzy.